Tried & True?: Skinny Vanilla Bean Donuts

On what i am now calling #FoodieFriday, I’m talking about another Pinterest recipe!

I have been obsessing over donuts and just breakfast in general lately. I can basically eat sugary sweets as soon as I wake up and it’s not completely frowned upon until about my fourth donut.
It is all actually kind of a problem.

Trying to make my guilty pleasure a little less guilty, I decided to try a recipe from The Skinny Fork. Their pictures looked amazing and the heart shapes of the donuts were just adorable. My amazing mom searched high and low for the vanilla bean paste that the recipe called for just so I could make these treats. It was a perfect excuse to use my (unfortunately non-heart-shaped) donut pans one last time before I leave for school.

I followed the recipe exactly, until I got to the milk. I used 2% instead of fat free, solely because I did not want the extra milk afterwards to go to waste. I am not sure if it was this, but when I combined the wet and dry ingredients, the dough/batter was stiff. Not exactly as dry-as-a-desert stiff, but not the consistency I expected. I added an extra splash of milk that kind of helped.

I would second the suggested idea to use a piping bag to get the dough into the donut pan. It made the job easier, although it piped out a little weird due to, again, the consistency. The batter made six donuts, instead of the eight it said it would. Anyway, I popped them into the oven as called for, but about halfway through the cooking time I decided to flip the donuts. I thought it would help with the shape of them like it had it the past so that both sides could form to the smooth pan. They were already hard enough where it did not do much.

I finally took them out a bit later, having just finished making the super-easy glaze, which I also substituted whole milk in for the fat free. I only let them cool for a few minutes until I dipped them into the glaze.

It was finally time for my favorite part: the taste test. I was not feeling too good about these donuts so far, but I am usually pretty hard on myself no matter how good it looks. There is also the matter of my milk switches.
The donuts were good. They had the subtle vanilla bean flavor that I was looking for. I expected them to be drier than they were, so that was a nice surprise. The actual baked donuts were not sweet but the glaze was extremely sweet. This did kind of even things out in the overall sweetness department. I will say my parents loved them.

This was a nice healthier alternative to other recipes I both have tried and will try. I can only really seeing myself returning to this recipe when I want a sugar break or a healthier option.